


that perilous stuff (which weighs upon the heart)

by JessJesstheBest



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gay Chicken, Kinda, M/M, No Magic AU, References to Shakespeare, The Scottish Play, high school setting, oh and thumbwrestling, tomfoolery as a method of courtship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessJesstheBest/pseuds/JessJesstheBest
Summary: “Uh, Mr. Parrish? You’d like to read for Lady Macbeth?”Adam felt his eye twitch, even while he nodded. It was true that even at an all boy’s school where boys would have had to read the female parts, Adam probably wouldn’t have normally volunteered to read Lady Macbeth.But Ronan had called him a nerd. So he was prepared to be the biggest nerd Ronan had seen.“I know what I’m about, ma’am.”Or Ronan and Adam volunteer to read for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in class. Shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 122
Kudos: 471
Collections: TRC Big Bang 2020





	that perilous stuff (which weighs upon the heart)

Ronan was in class, which was strange enough to begin with.

Latin had come and gone and Ronan had been present, but then he’d stayed. He’d stayed through lunch, and World History with Gansey. And he’d even been there through a class neither Adam nor Gansey shared with him.

Adam raised an eyebrow at him as Ronan slouched into their British Literature classroom. The eyebrow said all of the mandatory ribbing like “Who are you and what have you done with Ronan?” or “Ronan? In class? I might die of shock.” without being so lame as to actually say it aloud.

Ronan picked up the message, in any case, because he hip-checked Adam’s desk on the way to his own.

Adam ducked his head with a smirk.

“Ah, Mr. Lynch,” Ms. Marzo greeted him. “So glad you could join us.”

The words were probably supposed to be a reprimand about Ronan’s tardiness but the event of his attendance was so rare that their teacher couldn’t actually hide the turn of her smile as she greeted him, making the comment seem altogether too sincere.

Ronan just saluted her, collapsing noisily into the desk behind Adam, his long legs kicking out and making contact with Adam’s chair legs. Adam subtly scooted himself back in retaliation, bumping Ronan’s desk. Adam could hear Ronan breath out quietly in a laugh.

Ms. Marzo nodded at them, her eyebrows slanted in disapproval but her lip twitching, before turning back to the board to continue her lecture of introduction for their latest assignment.

Or perhaps lecture was the wrong word. Her soliloquy. It was a soliloquy, wasn’t it? When speaking of tragedies? When Shakespeare was involved?

Adam made a note to look that up.

“Nerd,” Ronan said, leaning close enough to Adam’s hearing ear that his breath ruffled Adam’s hair.

Adam repressed a shiver.

“For writing something down?” he said softly, turning his head the slightest bit to make sure Ronan heard him. They were well practiced in talking in class and not getting caught. At least when Ronan was interested in not getting caught.

“Yeah,” Ronan said, with the slightest breath of a snort to punctuate his contempt. “Only nerds write things down.”

Adam breathed a laugh through his nose. “What do you do?”

“I forget things. Like a cool person.”

Adam dropped his head to his chest, rubbing his mouth with one hand to smother the snort that threatened to expose them.

He could feel the smirk on Ronan’s face: a victory that he’d gotten Adam to break. The chair squeaked behind him and Ronan’s legs kicked his chair again, telling Adam that if he turned around to look, he’d see Ronan reclining self-satisfied in his chair.

That wouldn’t do.

Adam raised his hand, aware enough in what was happening in class to know the teacher had asked for a volunteer but not aware enough to know what he was volunteering for.

Which was a mistake, obviously, as Ms. Marzo was looking at him like she’d never seen him before. “Uh, Mr. Parrish? You’d like to read for Lady Macbeth?”

Adam felt his eye twitch, even while he nodded. It was true that even at an all boy’s school where boys would have  _ had _ to read the female parts, Adam probably wouldn’t have normally volunteered to read Lady Macbeth.

But Ronan had called him a nerd. So he was prepared to be the biggest nerd Ronan had seen.

“I know what I’m about, ma’am,” he said. And Ronan answered with the most disruptive, bark-like laugh Adam had heard from him. He fought to keep a straight face as he held Ms. Marzo’s eye.

She smiled fully, now, not even trying to hide her amusement anymore. “Well alright. Love the attitude, Mr. Parrish.” She turned to the rest of the class. “Now, as for Macbeth–”

A bang from behind startled Adam enough that he actually turned to look. Ronan had apparently smacked his own desk, so eager he was to raise his hand to volunteer.

Adam goggled at him, just a little.

There was a laugh from the front of the room that made Adam turn back around. “Ah, yes, I should have guessed.” She lowered her glasses enough to peer over the top of them at Ronan. Adam couldn’t imagine she could actually see him better that way, it was more for the effect. He could appreciate the commitment to the drama, if nothing else. “You do realize you’re volunteering to read not just today, Mr. Lynch. But every class until we’ve completed the play. That does mean we need you to attend.”

Adam turned to see Ronan nod, face serious.

He turned back to see Ms. Marzo nodding in return, something devilish glinting in her eye. “Well alright. It’s nice to see our lovely couple.”

Ronan’s grin was feral. “Yup. He’s the one. He’s my wife.”

And then he turned to wink at Adam.

Adam’s returning grin was rather feral itself.

  
  


The rest of the class period was spent with Adam and Ronan taking turns in escalation.

Ronan leaned forward to wrap his arms around Adam’s chest and so Adam kissed his forearm. Ronan would say “I’m the luckiest man alive!” and Adam would put a hand to his chest and dramatically swoon, saying “Babe,” like an undone damsel in a cheesy 80’s action flick.

The class was pretty evenly split on whether Ronan and Adam were being intolerable or if this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Not that it mattered much to Ronan and Adam what the rest of the class thought. This wasn’t about them.

Adam could tell by their teacher’s face that their behavior was maybe not appropriate for the Macbeths of the play. He had to admit, he hadn’t read it and didn’t know much about the dynamic. He knew  _ Macbeth _ itself was a tragedy, but beyond that he didn’t know what these characters were involved in.

He had fun that first class but that evening, when he was done with work and all his other homework was at a place he felt comfortable, he sat down to read the play.

This being Aglionby, and all students attending being marked ‘exceptional’, the time allotted to studying  _ Macbeth _ – an endeavor that might have lasted a month at any public school – was condensed down to two weeks.

This was fine with Adam.  _ Macbeth _ was one of Shakespeare’s more standard productions. It wasn’t like one of the obscure histories: there would be plenty of resources for analyzing and understanding the text.

And at least this meant his little game with Ronan wouldn’t drag on too long.

Adam couldn’t say what his next two weeks were going to look like with his other classes and work and whatever eccentric adventure Gansey had planned, so he was going to read the whole play at once. He could go back and write responses later but he at least wanted to go into the next lesson with a general understanding of what he would be dealing with, especially if he was expected to read for Lady Macbeth in class. He wanted to get her motivation. Maybe if he performed well enough, Ms. Marzo would give him a better participation grade.

What he found was…. not surprising, but enlightening. Lady Macbeth was malicious, ambitious, and cruel. And she loses her mind, by the end, undone by the deeds she performs.

It resonated with Adam in a weird way he was not prepared to process. So he instead took his notes, closed his book, and went to bed.

  
  


Gansey ambushed them at lunch the next day.

“Ignoring the fact that Lynch is in school for the second day in a row which is surely a portent for the apocalypse,” Gansey started, not breaking flow even as he bumped knuckles with Adam before sitting at their lunch table. “Now I hear that you both  _ volunteered _ to read Shakespeare? Not only in your free time but aloud in class? Which Ronan has agreed for the foreseeable future to attend?”

Ronan dragged a fry through some ketchup and licked it off. “There were a lot of question marks there for something that wasn’t a question.”

Adam’s face was still scrunched in disgust at Ronan’s barbaric condiment consumption as he turned to Gansey. “Where did you even hear that?”

Gansey frowned, as if not considering the source of his knowledge important. “Carruthers cornered me before history.”

Ronan snorted, half-turning to Adam. “That guy’s obsessed with you, Parrish.”

“He is not,” Adam dismissed, simply to be contradictory. He knew Tad had an awareness of him that bordered on unhealthy. Ignoring it was the simplest and least tiresome avenue to dealing with it.

Gansey’s frown deepened, inviting his eyebrows in on it. “So it’s not true?”

“No, it’s true,” Adam confirmed, dipping his French fry in his ketchup in a more dignified way. Or, at the very least, making sure the fry made it into his mouth. “Does it matter?”

Gansey’s eyebrows went from frowning to incredulous. “Does it  _ matter _ ? Not particularly, I suppose. Only you both are my two dearest friends in the world and this behavior seems wholly out of character for you.”

Adam shrugged, taking a sip from his juice. “There were extenuating circumstances.”

Gansey didn’t have a verbal response to that but his nostrils certainly had something to say about it.

He got himself together enough to ask, “Did you  _ buy _ a hot lunch today?”

Adam dipped another fry, making eye contact with Gansey. “Ronan bought it.”

Adam smirked at Ronan’s hum of pleasure, even as he had to listen for it over the disgruntled Gansey noises that were happening across the table.

“You let him buy you lunch?” Gansey asked, sounding more hurt than anything.

It was Ronan’s turn to shrug which was truly remarkable as he was already slumped almost level with the table. “I gotta provide for my wife.”

Gansey’s brain was visibly short-circuiting.

Ronan and Adam continued to eat their lunches.

“My friends are magnificent but enigmatic creatures whose motivations will elude me until I am dead and buried,” Gansey said, eventually.

Ronan and Adam just hummed in unison and got on with their meal.

That first class had just been to introduce the unit and assign roles. Not everyone in class had a specific role they’d carry through the entire two weeks, so the ones who didn’t had been informed they’d be used as filler.

They’d read the first two scenes on the spot, proving that, even among rich Aglionby boys, not all readers were created equal. As with most marks of incompetence, listening to the monotoned stuttering voices of his classmates as they didn’t even try to evoke the energy of the play set Adam to grinding his back teeth. The distraction of Ronan had helped in that first lesson, draping over him and being a doting husband.

But now they were reading Act I Scene iii and it was Ronan’s turn to bring his character to life.

He was introduced by a witch, which Adam would have found funnier if Skov, Whitaker, and Digby weren’t so horrendous at reading. Skov managed to say ‘A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come.’ with absolutely no inflection. And the following synchronized rhyme was all but a plane crash.

Ronan came in with his line with a level of drama and energy almost no one saw coming. ‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen.’

His voice transformed, bellowing out of him instead of his normal growl. It was reminiscent of Clark Gable or Gene Kelly, the way his words dipped and curled.

It made the entire room hold its breath in surprise.

Henry Cheng stuttered on his next line, but he’d still come around faster than Adam had. ‘How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these so wither'd and so wild in their attire,’

They continued reading, Ronan never wavering from his hero’s timbre. It was extremely cerebral to watch: Adam actively turned in his chair to do so.

Adam had already read the play. He knew the scene. But watching Ronan perform it, even with his head ducked to the book, was recontextualizing the whole thing.

Adam felt a pang in his heart about it, knowing Macbeth’s ultimate fate.

‘This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good,’ Ronan lamented, his eyebrow furrowed as if the witches’ prediction was actually causing him concern. ‘If ill, why hath it given me earnest of success, commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor: If good, why do I yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs, against the use of nature?’ His voice got softer yet more compelling as he read. The entire class got softer to meet him. ‘Present fears are less than horrible imaginings: my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is but what is not.’

Henry almost missed his line again. ‘Look, how our partner's rapt.’

Ronan’s voice stayed soft, taking on an edge of desperate longing. ‘If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir.’

The scene continued on that way – Ronan actually acting and performing like he’d studied this. Like he’d done it before, and the rest of the class just barely hanging on.

‘Very gladly,’ Henry choked, looking at Ronan like he’d never seen him before.

Adam could relate.

‘Till then, enough. Come, friends.’

And the scene was over.

Ronan looked up for the first time and, in a flash of a second, Adam could see his surprise that everyone was looking at him. He must not have noticed the class’s reaction to his performance, so caught up in the play. The look was quickly covered by his carefully curated look of disinterest. Adam would have been surprised if anyone else had noticed.

“Well,” Ms. Marzo said, the curiosity rampant in her eyes but unwilling to put Ronan on the spot. “Who wants to tell me what that scene established? Any predictions for the play?”

Adam, who would have normally answered this, had more important things to address.

“You know if you don’t watch out, they’re gonna end up sending you to theater camp.”

Ronan stuck his hand far enough into his field of vision, Adam could see Ronan flipping him off.

Adam smirked. “Do you think they have street racing at theater camp?”

“Fuck off, Parrish,” Ronan said, in case Adam didn’t get the message from his hand gesture. “Even someone halfway literate would sound impressive next to these assholes.”

Adam hummed. The hum had all the skepticism of words like “You’re telling a half-truth Ronan.” And “You know what that sounded like, Ronan.” And “You know Gansey’s gonna hear about this, Ronan. You know he’ll have something to say.”

Ronan just grunted and repeated, “Fuck off, Parrish.”

It was excruciating listening to his classmates cobble together any interpretation of the scene but they eventually arrived at the conclusion that Macbeth had just been given this prophecy and it sparked in him a desire to be king.

Groundbreaking.

Their predictions for the rest of the play varied from ‘He’ll become King but end up killing himself’ to ‘He’ll try so hard to be king he’ll piss someone off and they’ll kill him’. At least they seemed to know it was a tragedy.

Adam didn’t participate in the predictions because he’d read ahead and Ronan didn’t participate because he was alive.

But they were assigned to read two scenes today and, before anyone was ready, it was Ronan’s turn to read again.

‘The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part is to receive our duties; and our duties are to your throne and state children and servants, which do but what they should, by doing everything safe toward your love and honour.’

The regalness and nobility of Ronan’s tone was really…. it was really something.

Ronan read with the same intensity as before, not betraying any self-consciousness. If anything, he threw even more into the performance, periodically glancing up to look pointedly at Adam.

Adam met his looks with an impervious smile. He invited it. If Ronan was going to challenge him – raise himself up in this performance and try to play the hero – Adam could play his part, too.

The scene was over quickly, and the class, once again, made predictions. Ms. Marzo explained that now that they’d gotten a grasp for the characters and the starting action, they were going to progress more quickly through the scenes going forward.

Starting with the next day’s lesson with Adam’s introduction. Lady Macbeth was going to make her debut.

  
  


Adam had his head buried in his book at lunch the next day so he didn’t have time to listen to Gansey harass Ronan about yesterday’s reading. If that’s what Gansey was even doing, that is, Adam wasn’t paying attention. He was buried in his book.

The book was Macbeth Act I scenes v-vii which they’d be reading in class that day.

If Ronan was going to challenge him, Adam was going to be ready to face that challenge. He’d meant to read the scenes over to himself last night after work but his shift at the grocery store had run over, so he hadn’t had time.

This opened him up to ridicule from Ronan, of course, but at least he was safe from Gansey’s polite yet baffled pestering.

“You don’t need to be off-book, Parrish,” Ronan said, fishing a piece of pineapple out of Adam’s fruit cup with his pinky. He had an entire fruit cup himself he hadn’t even opened but Ronan had, again, paid for this lunch so Adam wasn’t going to call him out on it. And it wasn’t like he was put off from eating the fruit Ronan’s fingers had been in, anyway. “Your job is to just read it out loud.”

“Lady Macbeth does not simply read,” Adam said, in the most dignified way he possibly could without actually un-slumping from over the book. “He orates.”

Adam did look up then if for no other reason than to scrunch his nose in distaste at his own choice of word. “Dictates. Pretend I said dictates.”

He turned briefly to look at Ronan who was smirking. “I got plenty of jokes for both words so whatever you want, babe.”

Adam scrunched his face at Ronan this time, in a pronounced scowl, before turning back to the book. His neck had heated up the slightest bit at Ronan’s casual use of the word ‘babe’ but Adam had it under control. He could play this game.

_ Ronan doesn’t play games _ .

Adam knew that. This wasn’t a game like most high school dating games – this wasn’t a will-they or won’t-they situation. Both Adam and Ronan knew that, by the end of this, they very much would. This was just a long and convoluted courtship.

And Adam wasn’t going to back down first. They were both going to win at the end but Adam wanted to  _ win _ win.

Winning meant committing to his role. Being Lady Macbeth. So he’d be her.

Or him. The pronouns when out of class were confusing.

“Go get me a roll of bottle caps,” Adam told Ronan.

Ronan grinned like a shark and stood up immediately to get the candy for Adam.

Adam had no idea if Ronan would do this in real life, later, when they weren’t playing the happily married Macbeths, but he thought he might. Ronan probably wasn’t going to argue when Adam gave him the opportunity to actually buy him something. If Adam gave him the opportunity.

Adam went to turn to his book but Gansey’s expression distracted him.

He didn’t even give Gansey a chance to ask. “I’ve read the whole play,” Adam explained. “Lady Macbeth is the one with all the ambition. She’s the one who tells Macbeth what to do and makes him get her what she wants.” He gestured in the direction Ronan had left in. “That’s all I’m doing.”

Gansey frowned. Then frowned again, but differently. Then he frowned again in understanding.

Now Adam frowned. “What?”

“Nothing,” Gansey said automatically in a way that meant something. “I’d just be very interested to see how your own all-consuming ambition would translate to the ambition of Lady Macbeth. I hear she’s very industrious.”

Adam narrowed his eyes. “The Macbeth’s mutual ambition results in their eventual deaths.”

Gansey’s eyes widened. “Oh, does it? I never read the play…”

Adam sighed as Ronan returned with bottle caps, putting them on Adam’s tray even as he reached over to steal Adam’s fizzy water.

Adam grabbed his wrist to stop him, instead bringing Ronan’s hand to his face to kiss his knuckles. “Thank you, dear.”

Ronan grunted, his entire face going red. Adam smiled, sweetly, releasing his hand and turning back to his book.

Gansey, for once, said nothing.

Lady Macbeth’s introduction started with a monologue.

‘They met me in the day of success: and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge.’

Adam had a different approach than Ronan. While Ronan read his part with heroism and bellowing protagonist energy, Adam immersed himself in sleek and captivating rises and falls. It could be argued that Lady Macbeth was actually the villain in this play (and Adam intended to make that argument in his paper after all this was over) so Adam wanted to express that. It would have been easy and boring to talk in a higher voice, maybe try and sound sexy or something, to be provoking. For the laughs. But Adam was going with the core of this character.

He let his voice go as deep as it would, even going so far as to play up his Henrietta accent so he could sound a bit like the devil that went down to Georgia. The vocal choices he made were carefully calculated which only served to add more to the character, who was careful and calculating herself.

‘Yet do I fear thy nature... it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great. Art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false.’

The monologue was long. And with the way Adam was reading, it was only taking longer. But he finished it with the appropriate amount of drama, even changing tone for the lead-in for the next character.

‘What is your tidings?’

Tad had today’s privilege of being the messenger and his voice shook on his line. ‘The king comes here to-night.’

‘Thou'rt mad to say it,’ Adam answered, his words still slow but with a definite reprimand. ‘Is not thy master with him? Who, were't so, would have inform'd for preparation.’

It gave Adam no small amount of pleasure to yell at Tad.

Tad did his next line very fast, clearly wanting his part to be over.

Adam was glad. He had another monologue coming up.

‘The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements. Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!’

There was something about the mention of ravens and spirits and being filled toe top-full so close to the words ‘unsex’ that carved a smile into Adam’s face. Not because he found it particularly funny but he could sense the reaction to the words Ronan was having behind him and it brought him so much joy.

Adam also had to say ‘come to my woman’s breasts’ which lessened his enjoyment some but he thought he handled it well enough.

Adam made sure to change his tone again when it was said it was Ronan’s time to enter. It took on a certain… seductive quality he hoped Ronan was ready for.

Had Adam not read ahead, he may have attempted to be breathier or more doting, guessing Lady Macbeth would try and butter her husband up. But he knew better. So the seduction was a tease, mocking him. He was going to be mean to his husband, just a little.

‘Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor! Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond this ignorant present, and I feel now the future in the instant.”

He turned in his seat to look at Ronan as he said this last part, wanting Ronan to see the teasing cruelty on his face. 

“Marry me.”

Adam laughed. “That’s not your line. And we’re already married.”

Ronan grumbled, looking down at his book, before booming out his next line. ‘My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night.’

Adam reached behind him to pull his book in front of him, putting it on Ronan’s desk so they could face each other while they read.

‘And when goes hence?’

‘To-morrow, as he purposes.’ 

‘O, never shall sun that morrow see!’

Lady Macbeth went on to roast her husband for giving his emotions away on his face and warns him that for him to get anywhere in life he needed to hide his feelings better.

Which was a hilarious thing to say to Ronan for several reasons.

‘We will speak further.’ Ronan said, his voice softer and a little dangerous.

Adam grinned. ‘Only look up clear; to alter favour ever is to fear: leave all the rest to me.’

Ms. Marzo didn’t bother pausing, just threw them straight into the next scene.

Adam held his position, straddling the chair backwards, and delivered his lines to Ronan even though Ronan wasn’t in this scene. He wondered if Ronan was marking the difference in tone from how Lady Macbeth talked to him versus how she talked to everyone else. Adam was being very deliberate about it.

‘Have theirs, themselves and what is theirs, in compt, to make their audit at your highness' pleasure, still to return your own.’

Adam wasn’t entirely sure what this bit of dialogue meant. It didn’t matter right now, he’d get back to it. He knew he was bringing Duncan to bed or something so they could spring a trap. He just had to get through this scene so he could convince Ronan to commit murder.

Ronan started their final scene of the day with a monologue.

‘If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success; that but this blow might be the be-all and the end-all here.’

Adam was pretty sure this was a genuine soliloquy. Which he had looked up and actually meant a speech delivered regardless of listeners. It had nothing to do with tragedies.

And it was delivered like a soliloquy. Now that Macbeth was alone, or at least speaking to no one, Ronan’s voice was softer. Introspective.

He lamented what might happen if he killed Duncan, thinking about the consequences for himself and his immortal soul. The script was boring – men struggling with murder always was – but Ronan was captivating. Maybe it was the Catholic guilt in him, but he felt the anguish and the temptation and the shame and he poured it into his words.

‘I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on th'other.’

And then his voice changed, a show of bravado. Ronan’s shoulders even straightened some. ‘How now! what news?’

That was Adam’s cue.

‘He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?’

Adam made sure to sound annoyed, almost snappish, but still maintain his deep and drawling tone.

‘Hath he ask'd for me?’ Ronan asked, overly casual.

Lady Macbeth had no time for that. ‘Know you not he has?’ 

‘We will proceed no further in this business.’ Ronan squared his shoulders further, his voice punchy and stern. ‘He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon.’

Adam loved that Macbeth didn’t try a moral argument with his wife. He appealed to her ambition, targeting the potential of opportunities lost. It was one of the things that made him think they were genuinely a good couple, at least as far as tragic Shakespeare couples went.

But still. ‘Was the hope drunk wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?’

Or, in Adam layman's terms, ‘Are you a fucking idiot?’

Adam propped his book up so he could keep his chin up and look over it at Ronan as he delivered the rebuke.

‘From this time such I account thy love. Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, and live a coward in thine own esteem, letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' Like the poor cat i' the adage?’

‘Prithee, peace,’ Ronan pleaded. ‘I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.’

‘What beast was't, then, that made you break this enterprise to me?’ Adam said, dangerously. He leaned even more into Ronan’s space, forcing Ronan to pick up his book off the desk so Adam wouldn’t cover it. ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man.’

Adam was glancing up from the book so often, he had to have a finger on the page so he wouldn’t lose his place. But he wanted to look Ronan in the eye while he spoke. He needed Ronan to see the sneer and smirk on his face.

‘I have given suck,’ and Adam said “suck” with a hard k, the space between it and the next word enough to have Ronan go pale. ‘and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me’ He was full on grinning now. A little maniacally. He could feel the heat from the fire in his own eyes. ‘I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.’

Ronan swallowed. ‘If we should fail?’

‘We fail!’ Adam said, almost before Ronan could finish speaking. ‘But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail.’

It gave Adam a little thrill that he was the one that got to say the famous line. And he looked forward with pleased anticipation to his “Out damned spot” moment next week.

But he had to move on and detail their murderous plot to Ronan and the audience.

‘What cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan? What not put upon his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?’

Adam broke character just a little to curl his mouth in distaste. That line wasn’t great. Sounded a bit more like a sexual assault than murder which, if you asked anyone, was almost worse.

Ronan covered for it with his next line, grinning a little inappropriately.

‘Bring forth men-children only; for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males.’ Adam guessed he was grinning thinking about what Blue would say about that line. He grinned back. ‘Will it not be received, when we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber and used their very daggers, that they have done't?’

‘Who dares receive it other,” Adam started, his voice building, Lady Macbeth already knowing she’d won. ‘As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar upon his death?’

‘I am settled, and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat.’ Ronan said softly, but boldly, the tremor of his shame from the earlier monologue completely gone. ‘Away, and mock the time with fairest show: false face must hide what the false heart doth know.’

And just like that, Act I was over. They had set the stage for the play. They had established their world.

The entire class was gawping at them.

Adam noted how close he was to Ronan, his nose, mere inches away, with just enough space so he could look and see the script in his book.

He was near standing, his body folded over the top of Ronan’s desk from the front, and Ronan behind it, almost standing to meet him.

When had they gotten this way? Probably sometime during Adam’s speech about his breasts. Or maybe when he got excited about saying “Screw your courage to the sticking place.”

Adam stood up completely, it being the only way he could untangle his legs from the contorted shape they’d gotten in around the chair.

He then, gracefully, pulled his leg back over the seat, turned around, and sat correctly at his desk, sparing Ronan no more attention.

Ms. Marzo was also looking at them, but more delighted than aghast. “Mr. Parrish, any thoughts on how this scene will set the tone for the rest of the play?”

“I think this is definitely a turning point for the protagonist, ma’am,” Adam said, answered, casually. “Whether or not they actually succeed in killing Duncan, Macbeth will always have made the decision to value his ambition over the ethical question of playing God.”

He’d made sure to speak in his normal voice, or at the very least his normal Aglionby voice. The one where his Henrietta accent was filed off and the ends of his words were sharper and more academic. He probably would have done this anyway – this was how he talked at Aglionby – but the difference between this voice and his slow and southern Lady Macbeth was so distinct, it showed on the other boys’ faces how utterly wrongfooted they were.

_ “Is this how he normally talks?” _ He could practically hear them thinking.  _ “Or does he normally talk the other way? _ ”

Their teacher let the event pass without comment.

“Very true, Mr. Parrish. Can anyone tell me–”

But Adam wasn’t listening.

Ronan was flicking him on the back of the neck.

And Adam knew he’d won this round.

Adam didn’t have to work after school which was definitely a good thing even if it meant he had to deal with Gansey sooner than expected.

“I may have to transfer into your British Literature class,” Gansey said, after wrestling Adam’s bike into the trunk of the pig. “I resent having to hear tales of your antics from Tad Carruthers.”

Adam rolled his eyes, folding himself into the passenger seat and saying nothing.

“Ronan I can imagine,” Gansey continued, turning the key to the pig and raising his voice over the engine. “He comes from story-teller stock – you should have met his father. But you I am extremely curious about. What would an Adam Parrish performance look like?  _ Sound _ like? I simply must know.”

Adam tilted his head, filing away the story-teller tidbit for later review. “You can’t transfer into a class for a unit that only lasts two weeks, Gansey.”

Gansey frowned gently in a way that translated to ‘I absolutely could’.

“I may get a teacher’s pass, then,” he compromised. “If only to see for myself just  _ what _ you and Lynch have been doing that has this school so out of sorts.”

Adam smirked at his knees. Ronan was driving his own car back to Monmouth so Adam could be more free with his smugness. 

He shrugged. “We just read our scenes.”

Gansey snorted, indelicately. “I heard you climbed on his desk.”

Adam shrugged again. “Not  _ completely _ on his desk.”

Gansey turned his head sharply to look at him, his eyes wide, before returning his attention to the road. “Jesus Christ.”

Adam just hummed, non committedly.

“I couldn’t begin to guess why you’re behaving so flamboyantly – in  _ school _ – or how it’s come to pass that Ronan is coming to his classes with any amount of regularity – and not just the classes he shares with us – but I have to say, I am excited to see where this goes.”

  
  


Now that it had been established that Ronan and Adam were absolutely going to do The Most for this play, it started to spill out into other classes.

Ronan threatened everyone who even  _ looked _ at Adam, including Tad, three professors, the lunch lady, a squirrel, and Gansey. He even threatened things that  _ couldn’t _ look at Adam but Adam had vaguely wandered into, namely a wall, a desk, and a textbook that belonged to neither of them.

Ronan didn’t need Adam’s help to get detention (which he’d received from two of the three professors he’d threatened) but Adam couldn’t help but think he was over-performing on purpose. Grand gestures to get back at Adam for his teasing.

Adam would not stop teasing.

“You got a problem, you little puke?” Ronan asked the raven who’d landed on Adam’s shoulder as soon as he’d walked into Monmouth. He’d immediately pulled his school shirt up and over his head, leaving him in just his undershirt, but he turned a glare on the bird as soon as his head was freed.

Adam rolled his eyes, reaching up to stroke a finger over Chainsaw’s neck, grateful he’d taken off his uniform top in the car so her talons wouldn’t scratch his already fragile second hand jacket. “You can’t fight your own bird, Lynch. And we’re not even in school anymore.”

It was a few days later. Ronan and Adam had killed Duncan – Ronan delivering a truly stunning soliloquy in Act II, Scene i – and then they’d been coronated and killed Banquo. They finished the week halfway through Act III which irritated Adam’s sense of structure – of wanting things to be completed in round numbers – but that couldn’t actually be helped.

The scenes that weren’t just the two of them were harder to get through since the rest of their classmates were so incompetent, but the scenes that neither of them were in, Ronan made a big show of moving his desk around to Adam’s side to hold his hand. So those scenes had merit in that way, at least.

By Friday, they could tell that the rest of the class was growing bored of their antics but, lucky for Adam and Ronan, they weren’t doing this for them.

Ronan snorted, responding to Adam’s objection. “What, I’m just supposed to check my marriage at the gates? That’s not what a lifetime commitment means, Parrish.”

Adam rolled his eyes again, but he couldn’t keep the corner of his mouth from betraying him.

Gansey had gone to pick up Blue and they were (theoretically) spending the afternoon in Monmouth doing their homework so the portions of the weekend Adam and Blue didn’t need to be working could be spent caving in order for Gansey to find the artifact he was looking for.

In practice, Adam suspected more pizza and revelry, but he was ahead on his homework anyway. Not having to buy meals this week had really freed up his time.

Ronan flopped messily down on the couch, and Adam lowered himself carefully next to him, conscious of disturbing Chainsaw.

Once Adam was sitting, Ronan rearranged his whole body so his legs were draped over Adam’s lap, the weight of his legs jostling Adam enough that Chainsaw hopped off of his shoulder, anyway. Adam sighed but took Ronan’s boots off, for no other reason that that would make  _ him _ more comfortable.

“Marry me,” Ronan said.

“We are already married,” Adam said, without looking up.

Ronan grunted, twitching his knee so it bumped Adam lightly in the stomach. Adam slapped him on the knee.

“If you actually end up doing your history homework, pretty sure the old man’s gonna have a heart attack,” Adam said.

“Who, Murs or Gansey?”

“Both,” Adam said. “Why did volunteering in English mean you’re doing all your school stuff now? You gonna start up with tennis again?”

“ _ Fuck _ , no,” Ronan groaned, arching off the couch a little to make himself more comfortable. “The guys who play tennis are annoying yuppies. And Lynches weren’t built to be in the sun that much.”

Adam nodded, seriously. “Yeah, that’s kinda why the tennis players usually wear white. To reflect the sun.”

“Fuck you, I’ll wear white on my wedding day.”

Adam choked a laugh. “Oh  _ will _ you?”

Ronan scowled, kicking Adam with his knee again as Adam laughed.

“I’m trying to be an upstanding citizen or whatever the fuck,” Ronan said, finally answering Adam’s question. “Instead of a degenerate.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, slumping a bit further into the couch himself. “Why’s that?”

“Well I’m fucking Macbeth, aren’t I?” Ronan grunted, crossing his arms. “Should be all heroic.”

“Technically, I think I’m fucking Macbeth. Being Lady Macbeth and all,” Adam said just to see Ronan blush and scowl which he did. “But you think Macbeth’s the hero?”

Ronan was still blushing and scowling but his eyebrow hitched in confusion. “Isn’t he?”

Adam opened his mouth then closed again.

He didn’t want to disabuse Ronan of this conviction. He didn’t want to explain to Ronan that Macbeth was a tragic figure and did not get a hero’s ending. He didn’t want to do this because Ronan seeing Macbeth as the hero was kind of perfect. Didn’t Macbeth see himself as the hero? Isn’t that what ultimately brings about his downfall? Adam could reference this in his paper.

But he also hesitated because it would affect how Ronan played Macbeth moving forward. Adam didn’t really want Ronan to stop trying, which he absolutely would if he decided Macbeth was a man he didn’t like.

And he didn’t want to upset Ronan, by telling him that a character – a man – he’d built up in his head was going to end up bringing his own demise through his ambition and arrogance. Somehow, he didn’t think Ronan would take that well.

Chainsaw let out a squawk, flapping to one of the tall windows to peer out of it. Adam and Ronan heard the growl of the Camaro just after she did.

“Kids are here,” Adam said, instead of answering Ronan’s question. He patted Ronan on the shins so he’d sit up.

Ronan did not. He instead reached out his right hand, thumb up, in what was a clear invitation for a thumb war.

Adam shrugged, leaving his left hand resting comfortably on Ronan’s knee, and clasped Ronan’s right hand with his own.

They didn’t actually  _ say  _ ‘One, Two, Three, Four, I declare a thumb war’ but they did the movements, and then it was nothing but strict concentration and distraction tactics until Blue and Gansey walked in.

“Is this a war between the two lovely Lords?” Blue asked, a smirk in her voice.

Ronan and Adam didn’t look away from their clasped hands. “Quiet, maggot. Domestic policy. You wouldn’t understand.”

Blue snorted but climbed over the back of the couch so she was sitting level with their joined thumbs and began playing referee.

“Jane tells me the only thing she has due Monday is some Algebra homework which I’m sure Adam could help with if she needs it,” Gansey started.

“ _ ‘She’ _ is right here and can speak for herself,” Blue said, pushing on Adam and Ronan’s hands to help Adam win.

Ronan swatted at her. “I’ll push you over,” he warned her.

“Apologies, Jane,” Gansey said, though apologizing for himself or Ronan was anyone’s guess. “I only meant it shouldn’t be too difficult for you both to entertain yourselves while Ronan and I work on our history project.”

“Like you’re not doing all the work yourself, anyway,” Adam said, tipping his hand and suddenly back, trying to take Ronan by surprise.

Ronan could not be taken by surprise.

“And anyway, don’t Adam and Ronan need to practice their dialogue or whatever?” Blue asked, gasping a little as it looked like Ronan was about to win, but Adam’s thumb squeezed out from under it at the last second.

Ronan swore at the near-win. “We don’t practice,” he said. “Parrish, I know we’re playing to win, but please don’t break your fucking hands.”

Adam smirked. That was an edge he could work with. “We’re really only reading out loud in class. We don’t have to practice for that.”

Ronan snorted. “Wasn’t it you who said ‘Lady Macbeth doesn’t read aloud? He dick-taints?’”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Close enough.” Then he twisted his hand, making several of his knuckles crack, wrapping the back of his hand almost completely around Ronan’s thumb.

Ronan swore, loosening his grip so Adam wouldn’t  _ actually _ break his hand, and before either he or Blue knew it, Adam had Ronan’s thumb pinned for a count of three.

Ronan swore again and Adam pumped his left fist in the air in victory, neither of them releasing their right hands and neither of them mentioning it.

Blue crowed in delight, leaning over to ruffle Adam’s hair excitedly, before she turned back to Gansey. “Tell them to do a scene for us anyway.”

“ _ They _ are right here,” Ronan mocked, pouting, but still holding onto Adam’s hand.

Blue turned to him. “Come  _ on _ . I keep hearing about you guys being weird at school, but that sexist institution of classism and entitlement prevents me from witnessing the weirdness myself.”

“That’s a lot of ‘isms’,”Adam commented, idly.

“I only heard one,” Ronan replied, just to be a shit.

“Gansey said he hasn’t seen it either!” Blue whined, gesturing at him.

Gansey sighed, his thumb on his lip. “Jane, we can’t make them–”

Blue turned her scowl on Gansey then back to Adam. “Do Act II Scene ii.”

Gansey raised his eyebrows in a way he didn’t mean to be offensive. “You know  _ Macbeth _ ?”

She turned her glare back to Gansey. “Yes, actually, at my critically inferior public school, we’re assigned to read  _ Macbeth _ in our junior year.”

Gansey frowned, contemplatively. “Last year, we read  _ King Lear _ .”

“Of course you did,” Blue rolled her eyes, turning back to Adam and Ronan. “Do Act II Scene ii.”

Adam sighed, leaning back against the couch, his left hand absently messing with a loose thread on the cuff of Ronan’s uniform pants. “We read that one in class already.”

“So then you know it!” Blue said, brightly. She turned and started digging through Adam’s bag until she found the small booklet that was his copy of  _ Macbeth _ . “Here. I’m not touching Ronan’s stuff – I’ll probably get a disease – but y’all can share.”

Adam and Ronan looked at each other, finally and slowly unclasping their right hands. It was one thing to do that scene in front of their classmates – neither Adam nor Ronan ever bothered associating with anyone outside of their core unit. They weren’t like Gansey, making friends with the paintings on the walls and chatting up teachers just to pass the time. Unless you counted the weird friendship Ronan had with the Latin teacher he did detentions with. 

Adam and Ronan weren’t performing for anyone else in class, they were doing it for them.

But Blue – and Gansey, though he stayed silent in an attempt to remain non culpable – was asking for a performance.

Ronan clenched his jaw to ask Adam, “Should we give it to ‘em?”

Adam grabbed the booklet and flipped to the correct page, his eyebrow flicking in a way meant to answer, “Might as well.”

Neither of them bothered to get up, but Adam did slump sideways so he and Ronan could read at the same time. This put the two of them twisted together horizontally on the couch, but the four of them were going to experience the scene as if this weren’t the case.

Blue let out a soft “fuck yeah,” and folded her legs to sit pretzel style on the floor in front of Ronan and Adam. Gansey hesitated but then he himself dropped down, mirroring Blue’s position down to the hands folded together in his lap.

Adam started, ‘That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace!’

Adam’s Lady Macbeth voice had an immediate effect on everyone. Gansey sat up straighter, and Blue leaned forward, her eyes wide and bright. Ronan himself also sat up a bit, but Adam assumed it was just to make himself more comfortable. Ronan, at least, had heard this before.

‘It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:’ Adam mostly remembered this monologue so he glanced up from the book to show off a little and perform for his friends. ‘The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets, That death and nature do contend about them,’ Adam paused, turning a look at Blue. ‘whether they live or die.’

Blue was enraptured. Gansey was starry eyed.

Adam tilted the book toward Ronan.

‘Who's there? what, ho!’

Ronan’s voice visibly startled Gansey and Blue but Adam didn’t let them sit with it for too long.

‘Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, And 'tis not done.’ Adam didn’t sound mad, just disappointed. ‘The attempt and not the deed confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready; He could not miss 'em.’ Adam couldn’t keep his eye from twitching as he read the next part. ‘Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't.’

Blue and Gansey also had sour looks on their faces but Ronan elbowed Adam so he could give him his cue. ‘My husband!

‘I have done the deed.’ Ronan said gravely yet still heroically. ‘Didst thou not hear a noise?’

‘I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry,’ Adam answered. ‘Did not you speak?’

‘When’

‘Now.’

‘As I descended?’

‘Ay.’

‘Hark!’ Ronan said, louder than they’d been speaking ‘Who lies i' the second chamber?’

‘Donalbain,’ Adam answered, making his voice rumble a bit to show anxiety.

Ronan did him one better and made his voice quaver. ‘This is a sorry sight.’

Ronan lifted one hand, gently trembling in front of his face. This was an effort he hadn’t gone through in class.

Adam watched it for just a moment before turning his attention back to the page. ‘A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.’ he all but growled.

Ronan swallowed, his voice coming out less shaky but softer. ‘There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried “Murder!”’ Ronan whispered the word. ‘That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them: But they did say their prayers, and address'd them again to sleep.’

‘There are two lodged together,’ Adam said as if clarifying, as if bringing his husband back to the matter at hand.

‘One cried “God bless us!” and “Amen” the other;’ Ronan continued, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘As they had seen me with these hangman's hands. Listening their fear, I could not say “Amen,” when they did say “God bless us!”’

Ronan’s voice was louder and trembling by the end. They were definitely doing more than they had in class. Adam had almost forgotten Blue and Gansey were there.

He reached forward and grabbed Ronan’s hand. ‘Consider it not so deeply.’

‘But wherefore could not I pronounce “Amen”?’ Ronan asked, desperately. ‘I had most need of blessing, and “Amen” stuck in my throat.’

‘These deeds must not be thought’ Adam spoke over the end of Ronan’s last line, raising his voice a bit so it was like he was yelling at Ronan, but then he softened it at the end, making it harsh so his words felt urgent. ‘After these ways; so, it will make us mad.’

They continued the scene like this, really giving themselves over to the roles. Adam didn’t release Ronan’s hand.

‘Wake Duncan with thy knocking!’ Ronan gasped, arriving at the final line of the scene. ‘I would thou couldst!’ he finished in a whisper.

There was a silence, a soft swick of Adam closing the book and dropping it off the back of the couch in the general direction of his bag, and then just Adam and Ronan looking at Gansey and Blue.

Who just kept looking back, speechless.

Ronan seemed to decide immediately he didn’t have the patience to wait for them. He offered Adam his thumb again.

Adam accepted.

Ronan had already taken three swipes with his thumb when Blue got her words back.

“You guys have been doing that in  _ class _ every day?”

Neither of them looked at her, but Adam answered. “No, we only did that scene yesterday.”

Adam could hear her eye roll and picked it up from the way Ronan smirked. “You know what I  _ meant _ , asshole. You guys are just so intense.”

Ronan grunted. Adam shrugged. “They’re intense characters.”

Adam knew Blue and Gansey were exchanging looks the same way he knew Ronan was going to win this round of thumb-wrestling. Ronan’s hands were bigger than his and he should have won the first time, but Adam had pulled a trick on him. One Ronan would not likely fall for again.

That and, despite the face Adam was putting on right now, he was a little distracted by the scene they’d just read. He was distracted by being curled up with Ronan, each of them reaching the edges of their range to read. He could feel Ronan’s change in breathing when he spoke, the vibrations of the rumble or Ronan’s voice permeating all the way through him. And he could feel Ronan react to his reading and knew what it meant.

They were only halfway through this play. 

Ronan won and Adam pretended to be disgruntled about it and Blue and Gansey were done analyzing them, apparently, or maybe they were just discussing them in the low voices they were speaking in.

Either way: Adam was done.

He pulled himself to sitting, shoved Ronan’s legs off his lap, and sunk down on the ground with Blue.

“Now, show me your algebra.”

  
  


It was Monday again.

The weekend had been eventful in the way Adam had gone to his shifts and spent time with his friends but they didn’t end up finding any artifacts for Gansey’s hunt and Blue and Gansey didn’t contribute any more to the discussion of Macbeth, beyond casting them intrigued and (in Blue’s case) knowing looks, but nothing about the weekend suggested Adam or Ronan should be glad to be back at school.

But they were.

Well, Adam was. He couldn’t speak for Ronan but the fact that Ronan was there at all – even for his morning classes – suggested he was enjoying this assignment, even outside of the class itself.

The fact that he felt he had an excuse to pick fights in the hallway probably helped.

He slammed Kavinsky into a locker. “Don’t talk to him like that.”

“Lynch,” Adam sighed, exasperated.

This wasn’t the first time Kavinsky had said something belittling about Adam’s financial status, and not even the first time Ronan had clearly wanted to do something about it, but the teachers were already enraptured with the tale of “The Lovely Lords Macbeth” and weren’t likely to interfere. So Ronan took his shot.

“Whoa, color me fuckin’ dumbfounded,” Kavinsky said, hands up with his wrists pressed to the locker, his non-uniform-regulation white sunglasses perched on his nose over his leery smile. “Does Dick know you’re takin’ Parrish’s too?”

“That’s Lady Macbeth to you, fuckwit,” Adam said, calmly, hands in his pockets. Ronan had been carrying his books but those were tumbled all over the hallway now. “Lynch you’re gonna end up in detention again.”

Ronan snorted. “Whatever. Czerny and I still have to finish  _ Furious 7 _ .”

Adam ducked his chin to his chest, shaking his head, but didn’t interrupt again.

“You give up that easy?” Kavinsky asked, his words coming out a little strangled as Ronan pressed on his throat. “How boring. You gotta fuck pretty good to keep Lynch enterta–”

But he was cut off choking on Ronan’s fist in his teeth.

The scuffle was short since Kavinsky couldn’t actually fight for shit and Adam took the time to pick up the books Ronan had dropped. The fight wasn’t so much “broken up” as a teacher arrived and Ronan decided he was done. And then Ronan, as predicted, had another detention scheduled for that lunch period.

Adam scowled. He hadn’t packed a lunch.

Ronan swore as he made his way down the hallway, the teacher escorting him to class. Adam turned to make his way into his own classroom, but before he could, Ronan called, “Parrish, wait!”

Adam turned, watching Ronan exchange a couple words with the teacher before the teacher sighed a little, releasing his arm. Ronan jogged down the hallway, digging in his pocket as he went. 

Ronan had barely reached Adam before shoving his wallet in his hand.

Adam blinked at it. “What–”

“I know you don’t have a lunch today,” Ronan explained. “Let your husband treat you, even if he can’t make it.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “But then  _ you _ won’t have money for lunch.”

Ronan shrugged. “Then bring me something.” He grinned in a very Ronan-like way, even as he was still holding Adam’s hands in a way that was decidedly softer than Ronan-like. “I’m sure they’ll let Lady Macbeth in the dungeon if she’s bringing mutton for the king.”

Adam’s mouth twitched. “Scottish feasts were mostly wild boar, venison, and other animals you actually hunt. Sheep were domesticated.”

Ronan snorted. “Then get me a fucking rabbit.” He pulled his hands away, leaving the wallet in Adam’s palm. “I want a bugs bunny lookin’ motherfucker.”

“It’s duck season.”

Ronan barked another laugh before turning back to the teacher who was still waiting at the end of the hallway, a small smile on the teacher’s face.

It was, again, like Adam predicted. He and Ronan were being given more leeway because the faculty found the Macbeth situation funny.

If Adam had known it would be like this, he might have tried to get Ronan interested in his studies much sooner. 

  
  


‘Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale.’

“Are you actually rehearsing, Parrish?”

Adam let his book fall closed, turning annoyed eyes on the door Ronan had just walked through.

“It’s common courtesy to knock before entering someone’s home, Lynch.”

“What’s a little trespassing between spouses?” Ronan grinned, flopping gracelessly onto Adam’s bed. “But, you’re right: I shouldn’t have intruded on a lady in her boudoir.”

“The boudoir is the sitting room  _ outside _ the bedroom,” Adam corrected, smirking.

Ronan groaned. “Yeah well your poverty-stricken ass doesn’t have room for that, let me just say my thing.”

Adam laughed breathily, ducking his head. “I’ll let you be wrong since you’re never gonna encounter an actual woman’s boudoir anyway.”

Ronan twitched a little but didn’t sound mean when he growled, “Very generous,” back at Adam.

The joke about being poverty-stricken didn’t sting like it might have used to. It wasn’t meant to hurt like if Kavinsky had said it. It wasn’t said with pity or saccharin compassion like if it came from Gansey. Adam was just fucking poor and Ronan was acknowledging it.

And Ronan was gay and Adam was acknowledging that.

They both knew where they stood.

Adam grinned back. “I live to oblige.”

Ronan snorted. “Are you really practicing your part?”

Adam sighed. They were back to this. “Not really. Just…. familiarizing myself with it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I just said, dipshit,” Ronan said, propping himself on his elbows. “Why?”

Adam scowled. “Act V Scene i is Lady Macbeth’s most famous scene.”

“So?” Ronan asked. “You’ve already impressed the class so much I’m sure Tad’s having wet dreams about it.”

“I want Marzo to write me a college recommendation letter,” Adam said, avoiding eye contact. He tried not to bring up his plans to leave for college – to leave Ronan – too often. They both knew it was happening. That it was inevitable. Mentioning it usually just felt unnecessarily cruel to both of them. “If I do this well enough, she can talk about my commitment to my studies or dedication to the classics or–”

“How you gave an entire class a confused boner by talking about your breasts sounding like a more angry Johnny Cash?”

Adam kicked Ronan’s foot and Ronan grinned like a pit viper.

“Shut up,” Adam said, grinning back. “This is also for me. I feel like I owe it to Lady Macbeth to do her big scene right.”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “Why do you owe her shit?” he asked, kicking Adam’s foot back. “She’s not even real.”

Adam curled his fingers more tightly around his book.

He could have said something about how the two of them reading these lines had been the perfect opportunity to get closer and how he’d been enjoying his time on this playground with Ronan but that was far too earnest for both their relationship and the Macbeths so instead he said, “She gave me the chance to call you an idiot a lot in fancy language.”

Ronan hummed. “Well, Parrish, if you were better at fancy language, we wouldn’t need her at all.”

They took a second to smile at each other before Adam turned back to his book, softly shutting it. He turned back to Ronan. “Wanna go for a drive.”

Ronan’s grin got wider, his eyebrows going up. “Does that mean you’re driving?”

“Sure. Gimme your keys.”

“Not on your fucking life.”

They went for a drive. Ronan drove with the kind of hot intensity with which he did everything. Adam, once intimidated, annoyed, even awed by it, now just let it settle over him like it was the sun gently warming his skin. He settled into the passenger seat, his eyes closing, and felt quiet.

  
  


‘Out, damned spot! out, I say!’ Adam growled, his words snarled out uglier than ever before. “One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.’ Adam let out a gasp, his voice getting tight. ‘Hell is murky!--Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?’ Adam’s voice got breathier, a higher pitch and with a slight tremble. This was the first time the class was seeing Lady Macbeth as anything but perfectly composed. ‘Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.’

Henry – killed off in the third act and now cast as the Doctor, almost missed his line. ‘Do you mark that?’

Adam continued as if Henry hadn’t spoken. Which, in the mind of Lady Macbeth, he hadn’t.

‘The thane of Fife had a wife:’ Adam said, a little dreamily. ‘Where is she now?-- What, will these hands ne'er be clean?’ He caught himself rubbing his hands together under his desk. Which was stupid, the class couldn’t see them down there, so he stopped. ‘No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.’

There was an exchange between Henry and whoever was cast as the gentlewoman, Adam wasn’t really paying attention. They were discussing his craziness and how he shouldn’t be saying such things so Adam twitched and he scratched his neck and he wrung his hands and chimed in when he had a line, keeping the same intensity all the way through.

‘To bed, to bed!’ Adam gasped, his shoulders physically trembling. ‘There's knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand.’ Adam choked on a sob, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth. ‘What's done cannot be undone’ he whispered. ‘To bed, to bed, to bed!’

And the page called for Lady Macbeth’s exit.

Instead the class applauded.

Adam glanced up from the page to scowl at them for ruining the flow of the scene but to his surprise it was their professor who was clapping loudest.

His neck heated up in a blush and almost immediately he felt Ronan’s cool hand covering it.

“Marry me,” he said directly into Adam’s hearing ear.

Adam smiled on reflex but the back of his neck only got hotter where Ronan was touching it. “We’re already married.”

Ronan snickered, leaning all the way over his desk to drape himself over Adam’s shoulders. Adam just sighed, but leaned back into it.

Then he turned a raised eyebrow on Henry. “You have a line, you know.”

Henry shot a mean smile at him before turning to finish the scene.

The teacher paused for a little longer than normal before moving on to Act V Scene ii in order to praise Adam, making him blush all over again. Ronan nuzzled the side of his face.

But it wasn’t until they started the next scene, a scene neither of them were in, that Ronan said anything more.

“I think she’s definitely gonna write your letter now.”

Adam laughed softly. “All according to plan.”

“Yeah?” Ronan asked in a gruff whisper. “Was that your big plan all along? Is that why you volunteered in the first place?”

Adam just hummed.

Ronan snorted, the gust of it hitting Adam’s cooling neck. “Right.”

Ronan refused to let go, even to read for his part in Scene iii, so Adam was tasked with holding up his book so Ronan could read his part over Adam’s shoulder.

‘Bring me no more reports; let them fly all: Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, I cannot taint with fear.’

Adam followed along, sometimes tilting his head against Ronan’s to see if his breath stuttered in his acting. It never did. Mostly, Adam was just content to be held and read along, going so far as to snort, loudly, at Ronan’s heroic cry of ‘Geese, villain!’ directly into his hearing ear.

‘Give me mine armour.’ Ronan said, his hero’s voice bellowing before changing his tone the tiniest amount, letting some anxiety seep in. ‘How does your patient, doctor?’

Henry Cheng, truly revelling in his assignment as Doctor, much more than he’d ever done Banquo, languished dramatically and answered, ‘Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick coming fancies, that keep her from her rest.’

‘Cure her of that.’ Ronan snapped. Adam tilted his head to kiss Ronan’s bicep where it was curled around him. ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain And with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?’

Ronan was making Macbeth really go to bat for his wife. It was sweet to watch. Or hear, as Adam couldn’t see Ronan’s face from this angle.

‘Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.’ Ronan continued, his tone more dangerous. Adam wondered if Ronan could actually see his own transformation into a Macbeth blinded by grief and ambition or if he thought Macbeth’s response was completely natural. ‘If thou couldst, doctor, cast the water of my land, find her disease, and purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, that should applaud again.’

That wasn’t technically the end of the scene but that was when Adam gave up paying attention in favor of tilting his head all the way back so he could feel Ronan’s scruffy face against his cheek.

Ronan’s voice did hiccup then. Not enough for anyone to notice but Adam noticed. And he grinned in silent victory.

Adam had to work after school but he did allow Ronan to drive him there, the two of them folding Adam’s bike into the trunk of the BMW like a magic trick.

Ronan looked pensive as he put the car in gear but it wasn’t until they were on the road that Adam found out why.

“Does everyone always die in tragedies?” he asked Adam, the furrow of his eyebrows a pucker of curiosity instead of its usual anger.

Adam looked at him, marking the lines of his face when Ronan couldn’t look back, for once. “Not  _ everyone _ . Some characters have to be alive to narrate the denouement.”

Ronan scowled, a more familiar expression. “Don’t SAT at me, man. This is why I don’t ask fucking questions.”

“The ending,” Adam clarified, rolling his eyes. “The declining action after the climax.”

Ronan’s mouth twitched at the word ‘climax’. Adam rolled his eyes again.

“Why?” He asked Ronan.

Ronan shrugged, making that his answer.

“I can probably pick you up after work, too,” Ronan said, not bothering with a segway. “I’m gonna be out, anyway. Got detention with Czerny.”

Adam raised his eyebrow. “You had detention but they let you leave campus?” Adam blinked, then his eyebrows furrowed. “And you’re going  _ back _ for detention?”

Ronan shrugged again. “You want the ride or not?”

Adam looked at him, marking the slight anxiety at the corner of Ronan’s eyes and how the anxiety melted the further down his body you went. His hands were sure and practiced on the wheel. His feet were lazy, knees spread carelessly in the way of comfortable drivers.

There were three places Adam ever saw Ronan like this. Behind the wheel, at the Barns, and in his little apartment over St. Agnes.

“Sure,” Adam answered. 

Ronan turned a grin on him, too genuinely pleased to make it mean. “That’s my wife.”

  
  


Professor Noah Czerny held Adam back as they were leaving Latin the next day.

“He’ll catch up with you,” Czerny told Ronan and Gansey, his smile sunny and charming and his white-blonde falling in front of his left eye in a style Adam thought was called ‘scene’ or ‘punk’ or something else but was definitely inappropriate for a teacher. “Nothing bad, I promise.”

Despite the reassurance, Gansey still looked concerned as he backed slowly out of the classroom. Ronan, on the other hand, looked furious, his eyes widened in a panicked and therefore outraged way. Rage was Ronan’s panicked response.

Adam shrugged, waving off his friends, before turning to Professor Czerny. “Yes, sir?”

Czerny grinned up at him from his desk, a more elfin expression than would usually befit an authority figure, but Adam wasn’t totally disarmed by it. It seemed natural for his face. “You can unclench your jaw, Mr. Parrish. It’s nothing bad. I wasn’t lying to your friends.”

Adam said nothing, but nodded, a little curt. Even if he hadn’t been lying, Ronan’s expression was enough to have Adam believe that whatever this was about, Ronan had guessed what it was, and he still thought it was bad.

Czerny correctly interpreted his nod. He rolled his eyes. “We both know Ronan is prone to dramatics, don’t we? Don’t let him scare you.”

If you asked Ronan, Czerny was the only adult he’d ever met who had the proper respect for his dirty Latin jokes. If the gossip was to be believed, Czerny had once taken a couple hits off of Ronan’s joint behind the pool. If Adam had to guess, Ronan’s natural inclination for Latin and need for a positive older male figure in his life meant this relationship was only going to be inevitable.

“And don’t let him lie to you about what happens in detention, either,” Czerny continued seriously. “We finished the Fast & the Furious movies ages ago. Now we watch videos of cute animals on farms.”

Adam’s mouth twitched despite himself and Czerny’s friendly grin was back.

Adam cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

It was then Czerny seemed to remember he’d held Adam back for a reason. He schooled his face into what he probably thought was a serious expression but something about the glint in his eye still spelled a bit of mischief. “You and Lynch have been shaking things up these past few weeks, huh?”

Adam found it interesting that to Professor Czerny he was “Mr. Parrish” but Ronan was just Lynch. “I guess.”

Czerny couldn’t keep the serious face for long. He smirked. “I’m a little surprised you didn’t call me out for not using ‘your proper title’. I’ve heard you yell at more than one student for not calling you ‘Lady Macbeth’.”

Adam just shrugged. He  _ had _ been doing that but only because he liked to assert his dominance over the student population. And also every time he aligned himself with Ronan in a public way it made Ronan do his shark grin of victory which Adam really liked to see. But he wasn’t going to insist his  _ teachers _ call him Lady Macbeth. That might mark him a troublemaker. Which was the opposite of what he was trying to do.

Czerny just chuckled, ducking his head. When he looked back up at Adam, his face was still relaxed in a smile, softer than it had been, but his eyes were more serious than Adam had seen them. 

“I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing,” Professor Czerny said, his voice softer than it had been when he’d been teasing Adam.

Adam just blinked. “Sir?”

Czerny sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I see Lynch almost every day. And we don’t  _ talk _ because we’re a student and teacher and not friends and also he’s  _ Lynch _ but I have  _ eyes _ and you both have been acting married for the last week and a half so I’ll say it again.” He leaned forward, the smile almost completely gone from his face. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

It appeared Adam had underestimated what Ronan and Czerny’s relationship was. He blinked again.

Parts of Adam could appreciate that this was a sweet gesture from Professor Czerny. It was good for Ronan to have an adult that was looking out for him. An adult that wasn’t his brother, that is.

Most of Adam was mortified.

It’s not that he didn’t  _ know _ he and Ronan were being obvious but it wasn’t really anyone else’s business, except, arguably, Gansey’s, and he was oblivious as usual. He had it all worked out. He knew how this was going to go. It was going to be fine. He really didn’t need a teacher butting in.

But he couldn’t say any of that so instead he just nodded stiffly, avoiding eye contact, and waiting to be dismissed.

Adam sensed more than saw Czerny nod back. “Tell Ronan to bring those Irish candies to detention tomorrow, the Double Deckers, he knows the ones. I like that shit.”

That was as good a dismissal as any. Adam gave another jerky nod and got the hell out of dodge.

  
  


Adam did tell Ronan to bring Professor Czerny the Irish candy. And that’s all he would say about the conversation.

Ronan bought Adam lunch as usual (and Adam was already lamenting that this was his last meal since his character died in class that day) and Gansey rambled on about their weekend plans to go spelunking as usual (although with a few more glances at Adam than was called for) and Ronan reached over to steal something off of Adam’s tray, as usual, but the not-quite secret of what Adam and their Latin professor had discussed was a palpable weight on their meal.

Adam knew Ronan liked him. And Ronan knew Adam knew. That’s why they were doing this. That’s why Ronan had volunteered to read for Macbeth in the first place.

But Czerny’s intervention made Adam uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t explain. Like this game wasn’t theirs anymore. Like the performance they were giving as the Lady and Lord Macbeth meant their relationship – the friendship they had now and any future romantic relationship – was going to be performative as well. People would watch it.

It was occuring to Adam he should have considered this sooner.

  
  


Adam had already read his last scene (and fucking killed it) so he didn’t even need to open his book when he walked into class.

He did anyway, if for no other reason than so he would have an excuse not to look at Ronan.

They started with Act V Scene iv which consisted entirely of characters that didn’t matter. Which was to say characters that weren’t him or Ronan. The characters did matter in the grand scope of the play – Macduff went on to kill Macbeth, after all – but listening to the toneless drawl of rich boys was so insufferable, Adam didn’t actually internalize any of it. He was again grateful he’d studied the play on his own beforehand.

But then, of course, it was the next scene and it was time for Ronan to read.

‘Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up.’

Ronan’s voice was as strong and clear as ever but, whether Ronan was annoyed with how long this play had gone on or he was actually channeling the place Macbeth was in this point of the play, his voice held a certain current of darkness.

‘Were they not forced with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, and beat them backward home.’

There was a stage direction of a woman’s scream off stage. Adam knew it was Lady Macbeth but he didn’t do the scream. He was watching Ronan.

Macbeth ordered Seyton to go check on the scream. Adam watched Ronan and held his breath.

‘Wherefore was that cry?’

‘The queen, my lord, is dead.’

And, for the first time, Ronan didn’t follow with his next line.

He looked up to see Adam looking at him. Then he looked at the book.

And then he stood up and walked out of the classroom.

He left all of his things behind. His playbook. His bag. His uniform blazer. His attendance streak.

Adam just sighed, turning back around in his seat. Professor Marzo was still calling after him down the hallway.

She made it halfway out the door before returning to the front of the classroom, her face collapsed in frustrated disappointment.

Adam raised his hand.

“I can finish reading his part, ma’am.”

Marzo looked at him, her face shifting the smallest bit to gratitude and sympathy, even while her eyebrows showed the leftovers of frustration. “Oh, Mr. Parrish, you don’t have to do that. You’ve already more than earned your participation points with Lady Macbeth.”

Adam felt a private zing at the validation but he pressed on. “I’d like to see us finish the play. Doesn’t seem fair we’re down a lead because my husband is having a tantrum.”

There were soft chuckles around the class at that, both at Adam referring to Ronan as his husband, even after his character was dead and Ronan had left, and also at the word tantrum which made Ronan just the slightest bit less scary in everyone’s minds.

Professor Marzo’s face was tilted more towards gratitude now and she let Adam take over.

Adam didn’t read Macbeth’s part as well as Ronan had. He couldn’t read it with the same deep, southern voice he’d read Lady Macbeth but if he tried to replicate Ronan’s reading he’d only fall short. Instead, he read Macbeth like he might have read Lex Luthor or Magneto. Not quite with the complex heroism Ronan had imbued the character but fitting enough for the purpose of the play.

And anyway, it was a little bit his fault Ronan had walked out. He couldn’t take full responsibility for Ronan being the way Ronan was but he thought he’d had a plan. He thought he had things under control. He should have anticipated this, at least.

They finished scenes v and vi with less enthusiasm than any day previously, Ronan’s absence a physical thing.

English Literature was in the last class slot of the day so Adam wasted no time in scooping up Ronan’s stuff and running to catch Gansey.

Ronan had driven him to school that day – a complete oversight on Adam’s part because if he’d been thinking ahead, he would have known Ronan would react like this. But it didn’t change the fact that with Ronan storming off, there was no way for Adam to get to work.

Or maybe there was. He glanced out toward the parking lot as he passed through the quad, hoping to catch Gansey, and he saw the BMW parked just where it had been when they had arrived that morning.  
Adam slowed his steps, his breath coming a bit harder as his heartbeat slowed down from the franticness of his hurry. He went over to investigate, cutting across the grass in a way he wouldn’t normally while he was wearing his uniform issue wingtips.

The back door to the BMW was open, Ronan’s legs hanging out as the rest of him was laid flat against the backseat. 

Adam moved to the other door and yanked it open, hoping to startle Ronan away from the blasting electronica that was always pumping through his headphones.

But Ronan wasn’t wearing his headphones. He’d been laying and staring at the roof of the car in silence. He’d heard Adam coming.

Ronan stared up at Adam, his head slightly hanging off the seat as Adam had yanked away the door that supported it. Adam stared down at Ronan, his eyes squinted against the sunlight reflected off the roof of the car but unwilling to stoop to get closer.

“What the hell, Ronan?”

Ronan’s face collapsed into fury, the expression taking no thought or planning – always a second away. “What the  _ hell _ , Parrish?”

Adam sighed, dropping Ronan’s things to the pavement and leaning heavily into the open door. “Did you really not know? You really couldn’t see it coming?”

Ronan grunted, crossing his arms, which from this angle, only served to look more petulant than normal. “You said not everyone died.”

“And not everyone does,” Adam told him. “But it’s not like Lady Macbeth was a good guy. You really thought she’d live until the end of the play?”

This only made Ronan’s eyebrows furrow more.

Adam sighed, nudging Ronan’s head with his knee. “Get up. I need to get to work.”

Ronan didn’t agree but he sat up, ducking his head out of the open door on the other side of the car. Adam grabbed Ronan's stuff off the ground, clumsily, and shoved everything into the now vacant backseat, before taking the passenger side for himself.

Ronan drove in silence, not even bothering to turn on the stereo.

When they got to Boyd’s, Adam grabbed his work bag from the back but hesitated before grabbing his school books. “I can get Gansey to pick me up later,” Adam offered, even though they both knew the chances of Adam calling Gansey were pretty evenly split. “You don’t have to give me a ride home.”

Ronan snorted. “Shut the fuck up, Parrish.”

So Adam left his stuff in the car and he went to work, thinking about Ronan going back to Monmouth just to stare silently at the ceiling again.

  
  


Ronan didn’t say anything when he drove Adam home that evening.

Ronan didn’t come up to Adam’s apartment. Ronan didn’t pick him up for school the next morning.

Ronan didn’t turn up at Aglionby at all.

Gansey looked from Ronan’s empty desk in Latin and back to Adam with a shrug of being disappointed but not surprised. Adam wasn’t sure if he’d heard about Ronan walking out of class the day before but with Gansey he was always going to assume the worst of Ronan.

Adam had thought ahead and packed a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. Gansey watched him eat it with careful displeasure but didn’t offer to buy him a hot lunch, for which Adam was grateful.

Adam read for Macbeth in English Lit, Professor Marzo looking mournfully at Ronan’s seat before allowing Adam to be murdered. They did a brief review of the play and were assigned an essay. It killed Adam to know Ronan might actually have some valuable insights on the play but no one one would know them since he wasn’t going to write the essay.

Adam rode his bike for a late shift at the store. Then he biked to St. Agnes.

Ronan was already there when he arrived, splayed in the backseat of the BMW in the same position Adam had found him just the day before.

Adam didn’t go to him this time. He walked straight past the car and yanked open the door to the church, digging his keys out of his pocket as he made his way up the steps.

He could hear the close of a car door from outside and the open and close of the glass outer door of the church as Ronan followed him but Adam didn’t turn to look, focusing on putting the key in the lock and opening his door. He did leave the door open behind him so Ronan could follow him in but he didn’t look at him as he did it.

The first thing Adam said after he’d dropped his bag on the floor and his books on the desk was “You missed your murder.”

Ronan grunted, hovering near the door.

Adam turned to look at him. “Well, more of an assassination. Because it was for political reasons. But I guess it could be personal reasons too. So maybe a murder.”

Ronan grunted again. He was biting at the leather bands around his wrist – a nervous action Adam hadn’t seen him do in weeks. “Thought Macbeth couldn’t be killed.”

“By a man born of woman,” Adam answered. “And Macduff was born through C-section.”

Ronan snorted. “That’s a work around. Sargent would say they should have just sent a woman.”

“She’d be right.”

Adam sat at his desk, his usual spot. Ronan didn’t flop down on Adam’s bed, his usual spot. Ronan stared at the floor, angry.

“You’d know how it ended if you came to class today,” Adam said, though that wasn’t his real complaint. “You’d know how it ended if you read it. Or if you Googled it. The play’s been around for hundreds of years, it’s not a secret.”

“Or you could have told me,” Ronan growled.

Adam leaned back in his chair. “And why would I do that?”

Ronan made a frustrated noise in his throat and butted his fist against the wall. Not like a punch, but like a defense lawyer making a passionate plea for the jury.  _ Objection, your honor, pestering the witness _ .

“What are we doing here, Adam?” Ronan asked, sounding angry, as he usually did, but in a way that told Adam he was tired and maybe a little nervous. “What’s this whole thing been about if not–”

Ronan swallowed, lowering his eyes. The heel of his fist hit the wall again. 

Adam stood up, slowly, his own fist anchoring him to his desk. “If not what?”

Ronan made eye contact, jutting his chin in an attempt at bravado his eyes couldn’t back up. “If you knew we both died at the end – that our characters didn’t get a happily ever after and get to ride into the goddamn sunset – why would you let me believe we would?”

Adam’s knuckles bit harder into the desk as he leaned his weight on it. He let his eyes move away from Ronan’s, cowardly. “I didn’t know when I volunteered. And then when you volunteered. I mean, I guessed, but I didn’t know.”

Ronan scoffed, giving Adam’s vague excuses the contempt they deserved.

Adam looked back at him. “Fine, okay? I didn’t tell you because you liked being the hero. I didn’t want you to get disappointed in the first class that I’ve seen you give a shit about that wasn’t Latin.”

“And you didn’t think I’d be ‘ _ disappointed _ ’,” his voice went high and mocking on the word “When we got to that part in the play? When you fucking die and I have to realize that I wasn’t gonna get a happy ending with the guy of my dreams in front of the whole goddamn class?”

Adam wavered a little at ‘guy of my dreams’ but Ronan’s furious expression gave nothing away about whether or not he was even aware he’d said it. “We’re not our characters,” Adam said. “Why does it matter?”

Ronan didn’t answer, his jaw tight as he stared at Adam.

_ Ronan’s father was a story-teller. _

Adam banged his fist on the desk and stepped toward him. Fuck a plan. Fuck whatever Adam had thought he was doing. This is what he was doing now. “Dammit, Ronan, why does it matter?! Who gives a shit if Lady Macbeth went crazy and Macbeth was stabbed by some guy on a technicality. We’re not them. Their story isn’t ours. And I can do this.”

And he took that last step forward and kissed Ronan.

Ronan kissed him back immediately. There was no shocked hesitation or moment he needed to catch his breath. They’d been hurtling toward this point for days. Weeks. Months. Since the day they met. Since the first moment they made eye contact from the side of the road on the way to Aglionby.

It was quick, and fierce, and dirty. And when Ronan pulled away, Adam didn’t let him get far.

“It’s exactly what you think it is,” Adam told him, both of them breathing hard. “You and me. Fuck Shakespeare.”

Ronan laughed, scratching a hand through the short hairs on the back of Adam’s head. He leaned in for another kiss.

This one was softer. More comfortable. There was that same intensity but it didn’t push forward like a car crash. It was more intense like fires were intense. Hot. Consuming. Enduring. 

Adam pulled away this time. “I got shit to do.” He thumped Ronan on the chest. “But if you’re good, I’ll let you drive me to work tomorrow morning.”

Ronan grinned, his eyes too wide with wonder to be the vicious sneer he usually wore. “You’ll  _ let _ me. Maybe you really are Lady Macbeth.”

Adam shot him a look, sinking into his deep southern drawl. “Enough o'that my lord."

And he thumped Ronan on the chest again before turning away from him, feeling Ronan’s eyes on him the whole time.

  
  


Ronan came to school on Monday which wasn’t actually as strange as Adam might have thought.

He drove Adam in the morning and kept a hand at Adam’s waist as they walked through the halls. He played with the short hairs on the back of Adam’s neck all through Latin and bought him a hot lunch during break.

It was exactly how they’d acted when they’d been Macbeth and Lady Macbeth only the play was over. It was real. Gansey gave them a look but wisely kept silent. It might have been he’d been taken over with a rare case of tact or, more likely, Blue had had a conversation with him about it.

No one else seemed to notice.

Well, not until Professor Marzo was collecting their essays and asked where Ronan’s was.

Instead of producing a paper he hadn’t written or sneering at her with some other sign of disrespect, he leaned forward and turned Adam’s head, capturing his mouth with a kiss.

Adam sighed, rolling his eyes a bit at Ronan’s theatrics, but kissed him back, in the slow practiced way they’d gotten to over the weekend.

Ronan pulled away, smirking, his eyes all fire, before turning to their professor. “There’s your essay.”

Adam turned back to the front. Ms. Marzo’s lips were sucked into her mouth, looking very much like she was trying to keep from laughing.

Everyone else in the class was staring but this was never about any of them.

“He does make a fair point about Macbeth’s commitment to his wife being one of the key motivations to drive the plot,” Adam contributed. He felt Ronan kiss the crown of his head and he bit back a smile. 

Ms. Marzo nodded, her lips puffing back out but the corners twitching. “Certainly a theme worth exploring.”

Adam nodded seriously back. “I think so.”

Ms. Marzo did laugh this time, shaking her head. “Well I can’t wait to read what the rest of you said about the play. But for now: you can’t study Shakespeare without seeing it performed.” She shut off the light and pulled down the projector screen. “This one stars Sir Ian McKellan and Dame Judi Dench.”

As soon as the lights had turned out, the squeal of a desk chair across the tile started up as Ronan maneuvered his desk next to Adam’s.

Adam felt Ronan’s arm go around his shoulders and he leaned in to his side as they settled in to watch the film.

Normally, Adam would use this hour of ‘wasted time’ to do some work for other classes but for now he was content to sit here with Ronan.

At least, until Ronan whispered into his hearing ear. “Wanna make out?”

Adam laughed, turning his face into Ronan’s shoulder. “No, Lynch, I’m not making out with you in the middle of class.”

Ronan shrugged, dropping his shoulder a bit so Adam could rest his head on it more comfortably. “Then you should sleep.”

Adam opened his mouth to argue but closed it. Yes. He could sleep.

“Okay,” he said. He sank further in his seat, making himself comfortable and closing his eyes. “Wake me up when you die.”

Adam could feel Ronan rub his cheek into his hair. They were both smiling. “No promises.”

**Author's Note:**

> As with most of my fics these days, this was inspired by [a tumblr post](https://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/post/170407580605/so-today-in-class-we-assigned-macbeth-roles-to). And the title is a direct line from Macbeth.  
>  ~~I know I say Macbeth a lot in this but it's written down so it's probably not cursed.~~
> 
> Disclaimer: I was never super into Shakespeare in school so if any of this analysis sucks, that's why.
> 
> My outstanding artist, Julia, is a legend an icon and a star and I am obsessed with her work. Reblog the art for the fic [here](https://pygmypouter.tumblr.com/post/622047232346226688/they-were-both-going-to-win-at-the-end-but-adam) and also just follow her [here](https://pygmypouter.tumblr.com/) because she's amazing and deserves it.
> 
> And my beta was [Alex](https://rroguess.tumblr.com/) who was just so cool the whole time, doing several readthroughs to make sure we kept it tight. The dedication... We love to see it.  
> She also contributed as an artist and definitely check out her stuff [here!](https://rroguess-art.tumblr.com)
> 
> Once again, I am [Saywhatjessie](https://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com) on tumblr and you can reblog my post [here](https://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/post/622047189681733632/ronan-and-adam-volunteer-to-read-for-macbeth-and).


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